Colonial Lessons

Africans' Education in Southern Rhodesia, 1918-1940

Synopsis

This work shows how mission-educated Africans negotiated new identities for themselves and their communities within the confines of segregation. It examines strikes by students and parents, struggles over curricula, and efforts of African teachers to improve their professional status.

Review

This is a worthwhile book, which fulfils an important historical need to revise the role of the early African intelligentsia. On the whole the author's case is convincing: elite educated middlemen were far from colonial puppets; they built African status; shaped policy debates. - John Louis Moore

Author

Carol Summers is a history professor at the University of Richmond. He has published on syphilis and reproductive policy in colonial Uganda, racial ideology and segregation in colonial Zimbabwe.